Breaking a Cycle of Exodus: Past Failures to Protect Rohingya Refugees Should Shape Future Solutions

Image c/o Stimson Institute

In August 2017, the Myanmar military launched a brutal campaign in Rakhine State, which included crimes against humanity and acts of genocide against the Rohingya. Over one million Rohingya refugees now live in camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.

While this crisis has made international headlines, it is not the first time hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh. The 1970s and 1990s also saw massive forced displacements from Rakhine State, though the majority of these refugees were returned to Myanmar within a few years. Despite the past involvement of the UN Refugee Agency, which is mandated with refugee protection, these earlier repatriation operations were often premature, involuntary, and unsafe. Returning refugees to unchanged conditions in a country from which they fled sows the seeds for future displacement.

Nonetheless, repatriation is still often portrayed today as the ideal solution to this and other protracted refugee situations. Yet the history of Rohingya repatriations reveals a significant gap between how the international community and multilateral agencies translate norms and principles, such as voluntary repatriation, into practice. This gap needs to be recognized and remedied as solutions are considered today.

Click here to read the full report. Katie Dock writes for the Stimson Center.